THE DAILY NEWSLETTER - TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2021 

Media Winners & Losers

MEDIA WINNER:
Martha MacCallum

Fox News’ Martha MacCallum repeatedly confronted an attorney for the Rust assistant director who is under serious scrutiny in the Halyna Hutchins shooting investigation.

David Halls, assistant director for Rust, said in a statement to the New York Post, “It’s my hope that this tragedy prompts the industry to reevaluate its values and practices to ensure no one is harmed through the creative process again.”

Halls reportedly was the one on set who handed the gun to Alec Baldwin before the tragic shooting of Hutchins. MacCallum interviewed Halls’ attorney Lisa Torraco Monday and went through the timeline of what happened on set and the chain of custody of the prop gun. The question that became a fight was the most obvious and important one: who gave the gun to whom?

At one point MacCallum directly asked, “Did Dave Halls hand the gun to Alec Baldwin? That’s a very straightforward question. Did he hand the gun that was used and that killed Halyna Hutchins — did he hand it to Alec Baldwin or not?”

MacCallum pushed with very direct questioning, but the best Torrance could eventually muster was an answer that literally started with the words "Whether or not he handed the firearm directly...”

Mediaite founder Dan Abrams was decidedly not impressed with that Schrodinger's gun response, expressing amazement at the attorney's poor performance.

Abrams called it a “terrific interview” on MacCallum’s part, adding “I was yelling at the screen ‘Where did Dave Halls get the gun? And did he hand it to Alec Baldwin?'”

“That’s all she was asking," he said, "and all she got back was double talk."

MEDIA LOSER:
Emerald Robinson

Newsmax White House correspondent Emerald Robinson posted a nuts tweet claiming that Covid-19 vaccines contain some sort of satanic tracker with an unsubtle moniker.

“Dear Christians: the vaccines contain a bioluminescent marker called LUCIFERASE so that you can be tracked,” Robinson wrote in a now-deleted tweet. “Read the last book of the New Testament to see how this ends."

That was a reference to the Biblical end times prophecy in the Book of Revelations. The tracker in this scenario would be analogous to the Mark of the Beast. The prophecy says that in the end times, “no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the Beast, or the number of his name.”

Reuters published a fact-check of such claims in March, noting that while the organic compound “was involved in some COVID-19 research in the summer of 2020,” none of the available vaccines contain it.

Even so, the conspiracy theory that Covid-19 vaccines contain a satanic tracker has circulated on social media for months. Robinson, a White House reporter with a platform, joined in. At least, that is until the post was deleted for violating Twitter's rules.

Many similar tweets on her account remain, but the public rebuke is not a win for someone who wants to be taken seriously as a journalist. Being punished by Twitter might be cachet in some circles, but being exposed as a conspiracy theorist isn't a positive career move any way you look at.

And no mistake, this was her being exposed as that. The devil is in the details, and the detail here is that Luciferase/luciferin is a chemical compound that produces light, and it is not an ingredient in the vaccines. You're busted.

The A-Block

Virginia

It is election day in Virginia, and the gubernatorial contest is a close one between Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Glenn Youngkin.

The two White male candidates represent a host of issues that have polarized the state and observers across the country, from critical race theory to Donald Trump to parental involvement in education to Donald Trump to media and Charlottesville and and mandates and Trump and more.

Trump, to bring up a random issue, held a minutes-long phone call, or "tele-rally" as it has been inexplicably described, extolling the virtues of not voting for McAuliffe, during which Glenn Younkin was everywhere that wasn't that phone call. MSNBC's Joe Scarborough was fascinated.

Newt Gingrich echoed Friday's Green Room loser Mark Levin in arguing a stolen election hypothesis before any votes have even been tabulated.

On Fox, a Youngkin parent talked scary woke kid's books in Virginia, while elsewhere, a Youngkin rally-goer was very concerned about critical race theory, which he doesn't understand, he explained.

Doing his part, McAuliffe complained about the scourge of White teachers in the state, but got whacked for a fib about the level of Trump's campaigning in the state.

If all that isn't exciting enough, trust the gambling industry for a little extra spice. Reuters may call the race a dead heat at this point, but bookies are putting the odds on Youngkin to pull out an upset.

Oh boy. Stay tuned to Mediaite for all the latest on this roller-coaster ride.


In Other News...

NBC News' Ken Dilanian Sounds Alarm on Anti-Biden 'Let's Go Brandon' Guns, Calls Secret Service for Comment

Whoopi Goldberg Clashes With View Guest Over America's Progress on Race: 'They're Lynching People'

Traffic Jam: Stories About Facebook Are Boring Everybody. How Perfectly On Brand.

RICHMAN: Washington Post Didn’t Want to Publish Trump’s ‘Unrelated, Inflammatory Claims’ —
Except It Did

Must See Clip

‘Feels Like 18+ Content’

It takes an incredible amount of focus, drive and intensity to become Peyton Manning on the football field. And those qualities will often translate to talents off the field too, like savagely destroying a piece of chicken.

We said what we said. You can't unhear it.

Nor unsee this.

“You had a knife and fork!” Eli Manning rants in the clip. “Are you breathing?

You know you're going to go watch it, just give in.

Links We Like

The Evidence Mounts: Wuhan Lab Leak
- Joel Zinberg, City Journal
America Has Lost the Plot on COVID
- Sarah Zhang, The Atlantic
Joe Biden and the Deal That Wasn’t
Philip Klein, National Review
R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe Talks to Jacobin
- Michael Stipe, Jacobin
Rolling Stone's New Editor Noah Shachtman Talks Scoops, the Future of Print, and Taking on Rock's Sacred Cows
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